


Winter is Coming

by wheel_pen



Series: Darkwood Eastport [12]
Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fish out of Water, Magic, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 23:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3627792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autumn of their first year in Eastport, and Gillian is frantically trying to prepare for winter by canning everything she can get her hands on. Cal attempts to moderate her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter is Coming

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe. I’ve given a lot of thought to the Darkwood culture, so if something seems confusing, feel free to ask. I hope you enjoy!

_First autumn_

“I’m telling you, she’s going overboard,” Ria hissed. She ducked her head back into the elementary classroom. “James! No talking, please.”

“She’s not,” Cal countered from where he was lounging on the playroom floor. “Charlotte, no.” He pulled a crayon from the toddler’s mouth.

“She’s obsessed,” Ria insisted, keeping her voice low. The youngest children didn’t care about their conversation, but she didn’t want any of the slightly older ones repeating it. “She doesn’t even like to cook!”

“Canning is different from cooking,” Cal pointed out. The distinction should have been obvious, he felt, but then again Ria came from a warm land where food did not have to be laid up for winter.

“And she’s got Eli _and_ all the oldest kids down there, slaving away in the kitchen,” Ria went on, trying to make him see her point. Granted, this was probably a futile quest, since it concerned Gillian. “They’re not getting any of their schoolwork done. Sophia, sit down, please.” Surely _that_ would convince him—appealing to the children’s academic needs?

“It’s educational,” Cal dismissed, and Ria rolled her eyes. “Food science, right. Robert! No throwing.”

“Why can’t the servants just do it, if she wants it done?” Ria persisted. “Why does she have to be down there, getting all worked up about it? No, Mommy can’t play right now, sweetie,” she told Lucia regretfully.

“Are you lonely without Gillian?” Cal asked and Ria looked at him in surprise. Too late, she realized he had pinned her with his analytical gaze. “No. Frustrated you’re left to watch the children? But if she and Eli were at work you’d have just as much to do, more because the older kids would be here,” he pointed out.

“Caroline, you’re making a mess,” Ria pointed out in a weak attempt at distraction.

Cal was not to be dissuaded, however. “Gillian is doing something to help the family,” he remarked. “Does that make you feel insecure? Maybe _you_ aren’t doing enough.”

“Louisa! One more word—“ Ria snapped into the other room. The classroom went deathly silent and all the children stared at her.

“Bingo,” Cal deduced, a bit smugly.

“B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O!” some of the younger children began to sing, at the top of their lungs.

Cal hopped up from the floor, deftly ignoring the din. “She’s just remembering long, cold winters in Scotland with nothing to eat,” he told Ria off-hand, heading for the door. “She does it every time we leave the Valley.” Even their not-large flat in London had been brimming with home-canned goods—and it didn’t even get that cold there.

“Where are you going?” Ria demanded above the noise of the squawking children. “James, Louisa, hush!”

“I’m gonna go tell Gillian to stop being useful,” he replied obnoxiously. “You can handle things here, can’t you?” A toy went flying past Ria’s face before she could answer.

Cal met Anna and Julia coming back up the stairs. He didn’t bother asking them what was wrong or why they were no longer in the kitchen working—the answer was obvious in their doleful expressions. “Your madru will be happy to see you,” he said instead. Maybe that would make them feel better.

The kitchen was a hive of activity when Cal cautiously poked his head in. The servants _were_ doing a fair amount of work, chopping, mixing, stirring, pouring, labeling, scalding glass jars. Canning was somewhat of a dangerous occupation, Cal felt, and there was no room for those who weren’t going to pay attention. Hence why the girls had been dismissed from duty, likely—daring to giggle during the serious business of laying up provisions for winter. Or something like that.

Eli’s expression showed some relief when he looked up from the pot he was stirring and saw Cal in the doorway, which in Cal’s mind was reason enough to intervene. If even _Eli_ was starting to get fed up…

“How’s it going?” he asked casually.

Gillian was hopping from pot to pot, sampling whatever sweet-smelling substance was being boiled inside them and deciding which were fit to be canned and which needed to cook longer. “This one, another five minutes, and a tablespoon more of cinnamon,” she judged. “This one is done.” The servants nodded and followed her instructions.

Finally she stepped a bit closer to Cal and surveyed the operation as a whole. “I don’t think we’re going to get all the apples done today,” she worried. “We should’ve gotten a third stovetop. And we’re almost out of cinnamon, I had to send Alice and Luke into town to get more. But if they don’t hurry up there’s going to be some non-cinnamon apples getting canned—I can’t let them cook much longer or they’ll get mushy. Well, maybe the variety would be good, some of the children don’t like cinnamon as much—“

There was a slightly fanatic gleam in Gillian’s eye that Cal was observing instead of listening to her. He reached out and took her hand, which seemed to startle her. “Can you come help me with something for a second?” he asked casually.

Gillian gave him a slightly peeved look. “ _Now_? I’m right in the middle of this—“

Cal smiled in a friendly, disarming way, as one might when confronted by a suspicious native bearing a sharp spear. He tugged gently on her hand to draw her out of the humid kitchen. “Come on. Just for a minute.”

With a sigh Gillian followed him into the cool, quiet hall. “What?”

Much to her surprise Cal wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He _did_ have a plan… although now that they were alone together… it was the _hall_ , though, hardly private… but there were plenty of empty rooms just a few steps away… _Focus, focus!_ Cal told himself. “I just wanted to thank you for preparing all this food for winter,” he told her, with utter sincerity.

He felt Gillian slump slightly in his arms. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” she said with resignation. And possible self-realization.

“Not at all,” Cal assured her, rubbing her back. “It was _my_ idea to stock up for winter. And if we can’t safely get off the island to shop, seems likely other people would have trouble gettin’ on it, like the grocery delivery.”

Gillian groaned into his shoulder. “You _do_ think I’m crazy,” she surmised.

They swayed slightly in unison, enjoying the feel of each other in their arms. Cal found it very peaceful. “Maybe you could let Eli go back upstairs,” he suggested after a quiet moment. “Keep Alice and Luke, it’s educational.”

“We’re going to eat it all,” Gillian promised, a bit defensively, as if he had suggested they wouldn’t. “I’ll start serving it tonight, even.”

“That’s fine,” Cal agreed. “I’m sure we’ll be snowed in a few times during the winter, and considering how much food we go through…”

“Next year we’ll have produce from our own garden and fruit trees to use,” Gillian pointed out. “We won’t have to buy as much.” The Darkwood clans were currently quite popular at the local farmers’ market.

“That’ll be nice, won’t it?” Cal replied pleasantly. “It’ll be good for the kids to see that process.”

“I think we should smoke a pig!” Gillian blurted, apparently unable to contain the thought any longer.

“No,” Cal told her, soothingly.

“Well, maybe I could _buy_ some smoked meat from the local butcher’s shop,” she speculated, calculating the amounts already.

“You buy as much meat as you want,” Cal promised. As long as she didn’t set up a slaughterhouse on the premises. The kids could do without _that_ much education.

Gillian hugged him suddenly. “I’m sorry, I’ve been kind of unbearable lately, haven’t I?” she apologized, slightly sheepish.

“Well, you _have_ been smelling rather strongly of vinegar,” Cal admitted, “but I find that appealing.”

She let out a long sigh. “I just worry about new places.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want anyone to go hungry.”

“I know.”

“I don’t even want them to realize they _might_ go hungry. I don’t want them to have nothing to eat all day but pickles and cinnamon apples.”

“Oh, have you done the pickles already?” Cal remarked. “That would explain the vinegar.”

“I don’t want them to be miserable.”

“They won’t be, love,” Cal assured her. “That won’t happen. We have a lot more resources here. We have the servants. We could never lift a finger to prepare and still be alright.”

“I know.” Though her reply didn’t sound as confident as Cal’s had.

He leaned closer to murmur low in her ear. “Let’s play ‘pioneers’ tonight,” he suggested cheekily. “I’ll be the pioneer man who goes out in the woods and kills things, and you can be the pioneer wife who stays home and cans apples and, er, frogs and whatever else you can catch.” The crisis was largely over, he felt.

“Well, I’ll play your wife,” Gillian allowed, “but I don’t really want to be a pioneer.”

He pulled back slightly to look at her. “What are you now?” They were only the second community of Darkwood clans to settle in America, after all.

“I mean, a pioneer like out in the middle of the wilderness,” Gillian clarified. “With no one around for miles and miles, and no one to help you or…” A faraway look stole across her eyes, an expression Cal could read all too clearly.

“Okay, how about the priest and the naughty schoolgirl, then?” he asked, giving her a little shake to bring her back to the here and now. Gillian gave him a chiding look at his sacrilegious suggestion, which he didn’t mind at all. “Or the nun and the naughty _schoolboy_? You’d make a really hot nun.”

Gillian gave him a slight push. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking after the children?” she asked pointedly. “Did you leave Ria up there all alone?”

“Well, you’ve got Eli working as an indentured servant,” he rejoined. “Let my people go!”

“Wow, that’s tacky,” Eli observed dryly from the kitchen doorway. “Was that your Moses impression?”

“Charlton Heston, actually,” Cal shot back, as Gillian stepped away from him completely.

“Eli, thank you so much for your help,” she told the younger man, kissing him fondly. “I’m sorry if I was rude.”

“You were kinda,” Eli agreed pleasantly. “But it’s kind of a turn-on, actually.”

“I think the children were on the verge of rioting when I left,” Cal interrupted loudly. “Go up and rescue Ria, alright?”

Eli smirked at him as Gillian disappeared into the kitchen. “Are you gonna stay and ‘help’ with the canning?” he teased. “I’m not immediately sure how that could be a euphemism, but I’ll work on it.” Cal merely gave him a _look_ and decided it was time to go into the office.


End file.
